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| U.S. Vice-President J. D. Vance |
Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk have challenged decades-long approaches to political extremism that were designed to prevent another Hitler.
The American vice president visited a concentration camp on Thursday afternoon. He laid a wreath at the foot of a statue, made the sign of the cross and paused before a memorial wall where in multiple tongues, including German and English, the words “Never Again” were written.
JD Vance told reporters he had read about the Holocaust in books, but that its “unspeakable evil” was driven home by his trip to Dachau, where more than 30,000 people died at the hands of the Nazis. “It’s something that I’ll never forget, and I’m grateful to have been able to see it up close in person,” Mr. Vance said.
But after Mr. Vance spoke in Munich the next day, Germany’s leaders effectively questioned if he had understood what he had just seen.
Eighty years after American soldiers liberated Dachau, top German officials this weekend all-but accused Mr. Vance — and by extension, President Trump — of boosting a political party that many Germans consider to be dangerously descended from Nazism.
That party, called the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is sitting second in the polls for next Sunday’s parliamentary elections, with about 20 percent of the public saying they support it. But no other German party is willing to govern with it. That’s because the AfD has at times downplayed Hitler’s atrocities. Some party members have reveled in Nazi slogans.
German intelligence agencies have classified parts of the AfD as extremist. Members have been arrested in connection with multiple plots to overthrow the government. Some reportedly attended last year a gathering that included discussions of deporting not only asylum seekers, but German citizens who immigrated to the country.
“A commitment to ‘never again’ is not reconcilable with support for the AfD,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in Munich on Saturday morning, as part of a lengthy rebuke of Mr. Vance.
“This ‘never again’ is the historical mission that Germany as a free democracy must and wants to continue to live up to every day,” he said. “Never again fascism, never again racism, never again war of aggression.”
Decades of German law and political practice have revolved around the belief that to prevent another Hitler from coming to power, the government must ban hate speech and shun political parties deemed extreme. The nation has an Office for the Protection of the Constitution, with intelligence tools to monitor extremists, and a constitutional court that in rare cases can ban parties entirely.
Mr. Vance, like another Trump administration official, Elon Musk, has parachuted into the country’s parliamentary elections, criticizing that approach. Both men say it is time for Germans to stop policing speech and to start treating the country’s hard-right flank as the avatars of disenfranchised voters who share Mr. Trump’s opposition to large-scale immigration.
Mr. Musk has publicly endorsed the AfD, telling party members last month that Germans have “too much of a focus on past guilt.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/15/world/europe/vance-musk-nazis-afd-munich.html
Guess what?
The fascism you see in the U.S. under Trump is the same as that of Opus Dei in the Roman Catholic Church. Opus Dei is Catholofascism. It’s the elephant in the room.
It requires a politically sophisticated mind to see it.
The Roman Catholic religion exists in politically syncretist forms.
Vance belongs to a constellation of political forces in the U.S. that includes the Catholic right and Opus Dei.
Fascism coopts liberal democracy until it can mount an effective takeover of the political system. This historical habit is exactly what is happening in the U.S. now.
Democratic Germany is correct in resisting Nazi revanchism and in describing Vance’s support of far-right politics as “unacceptable” (Defense Minister Boris Pistorius).
Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore
ReplyDeletehttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:J._D._Vance_%2853809627400%29_%28cropped%29.jpg
Gonzalinho
THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN OPUS DEI QUASI-FASCISM AND U.S. RIGHT-WING POLITICS
ReplyDelete[Describes recent rightward shift in U.S. Catholic politics, including the involvement of members of Opus Dei]
JD Vance converted to Catholicism and five years later the Republican Party coronated him as its choice for vice president, a culmination of the deepening affinity between conservatives in the church and the American political right.
“Vance represents the future of American politics –– toward an authentic realization of the Catholic principle of solidarity – rightly understood,” Brian Burch, who leads one of the most right-wing Catholic political advocacy groups, called CatholicVote, said in a statement in July.
…Supporters like Burch celebrated Vance as a model of an evolving conservative Catholic ethic, one that is broadening its political horizons but unwavering about its religious principles. With Vance’s legislative leadership, Burch’s political advocacy, and a wide-reaching conservative media apparatus, this reimagined Catholic right has strengthened in just a few years. Now, Vance is the nation’s second-highest elected official and Burch will likely be the next ambassador to the Vatican, a nomination that concerns many due to Burch’s past antagonism toward Pope Francis.
…American Catholics have historically been split “pretty much down the middle” politically, said Ruth Braunstein, associate professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut.
But she said there’s been a rightward shift in recent years, due in part to declining church membership that's left American conservative Catholics with more power.
Meanwhile, their views on issues long at the forefront of Catholic political advocacy, such as abortion and same-sex marriage, plus more recent hot-button topics like LGBTQ+ inclusion in public schools and creating new conservative non-diocesan run religious schools have led some Catholics to engage politics in a manner not unlike their evangelical Protestant counterparts.
…Slightly more than half – 52% – of registered Catholic voters align with the Republican Party, according to data published in 2024 by the Pew Research Center. By contrast, 44% of registered Catholic voters favor the Democratic Party.
That’s a slight, but noteworthy, move to the right from four years ago, in which Pew reported that 48% of Catholics leaned toward the Republican Party and 47% supported the Democratic Party.
…With embracing integralism, Vance became a fitting companion for those like Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts. Roberts, who in addition to his role at the conservative think tank is a member of the mysterious and hardline Catholic group Opus Dei, would later become known as the architect of Project 2025. The controversial policy playbook of more than 900 pages is filled with recommendations to effectively overhaul the entire federal government.
The Heritage Foundation reported in January 2018 that Trump had implemented nearly two-thirds of its policy recommendations in his first year in office, though Trump and Vance attempted to distance themselves from the project during their campaign. But Vance soon after expressed his respect for Roberts and many of Project 2025’s intended effects in a foreword he authored for Roberts’ new book, “Dawn’s Early Light.”
To be continued
Gonzalinho
THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN OPUS DEI QUASI-FASCISM AND U.S. RIGHT-WING POLITICS
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…“What these Catholic figures are pushing is a particular mission, value, way of being that is more connected to white American existence than it is Catholic existence,” Black Moses Rankins, who leads the progressive Catholic organization Call to Action, said in an interview.
With the start of Trump's second term, Rankins said Call to Action is planning on increasing its number of liturgies, educational efforts and tangible aid to marginalized groups as a means of putting their faith into practice.
Migrants in particular have become the “scapegoats for some of America’s greater ills,” Rankins said, adding that mass deportation is among his list of top concerns, alongside issues such as public education, wage equity and policing.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/01/30/catholic-jd-vance-trump-immigration/77434481007/
—Liam Adams and BrieAnna J. Frank, “‘Load the muskets’: An emergent Catholic right’s hopes for the White House to the Vatican,” USA Today (January 30, 2025)
[Opus Dei is unmistakably part of this rightward shift. Opus Dei provides the ideological matrix that doubles as a platform for rightist politics claiming to be spirituality.]
I saw an above-the-fold NYT article last week, describing JD Vance’s conversion to Catholicism. He was attracted to the faith, according to the article by “its small, energetic world of conservative Catholic intellectuals, lawyers and politicians prioritizes its traditional views on family”. The NYT noted that this circle includes Josh Hawley and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
This piqued my interest in Vance’s Catholic connection, and a search turned up an article from the New Yorker, which further details Vance’s ties to the conservative Catholic movement. Finally, an article in the New Republic, tied Project 2025, Leonard Leo and John Roberts to the Catholic Information Center. TNR notes that the priest in charge of the CIC is a member of Opus Dei, an organization founded in 1928 by a Spanish priest, Josemaria Escrivá. Opus Dei is not a religious order, but rather a movement dedicated to “finding God in daily life”. In other words, members of Opus Dei remain in their chosen profession, but use their position (and influence) to further the aims of the organization.
…after I read about Vance’s conversion, as well as the connections, subtle but not completely hidden, linking Opus Dei, the CIC and two conservative Supreme Court justices, I looked up the religious affiliation of other members of the court. It turns out that five of the six conservative justices on the court are Catholic, and Gorsuch is listed as Anglican/Catholic.
To be continued 2
Gonzalinho
THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN OPUS DEI QUASI-FASCISM AND U.S. RIGHT-WING POLITICS
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…Opus Dei represents a conservative strain of Catholicism that longs for the illiberal past. It was organized in direct response to the Communist movements in Europe of the early twentieth century, and was granted official recognition by the conservative Pope Pius XII in 1950. Its stature was enhanced by John Paul II, another conservative anti-communist, who in 1982 allowed Opus Dei to hold governance over matters of religion and discipline for its members without requiring local diocesan approval.
…The Supreme Court was traditionally white and Protestant, with a scattering of Jews. But the Roberts court that has overturned Roe v. Wade and greatly extended Presidential power is almost exclusively conservative and Catholic. Should Trump be re-elected, the power behind the throne will be another conservative (if recently converted) Catholic. …The Constitution guarantees the official separation of church and state. But such separation means little if those who run that government are believers in a medieval strain of religion that has little in common with what most US citizens believe or would care to be governed by.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/3/2267546/-Opus-Dei-the-Supreme-Court-and-J-D-Vance-a-speculation
—FreeBandit, “Opus Dei, the Supreme Court and J. D. Vance: a speculation,” Daily Kos, September 3, 2024
[Escriva’s ideological directives propounded as Roman Catholic spirituality—in setting forth the Opus Dei “spirit,” Escriva claimed to be directly inspired by God, in this respect insisting that he acted as the mouthpiece of God—show not only the rightist but also the quasi-fascist or fascist character of his understanding of the Opus Dei “spirit.” Opus Dei spirituality thereby qualifies as religious syncretism.]
“Roman Catholic Fascism”
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2017/06/duterte-toots-his-horn-roman-catholic.html
“Opus Dei—a Fascist Organization?”
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/01/opus-deia-fascist-organization.html
“Is Opus Dei Influenced by Fascist Ideas?”
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2017/11/placeholder.html
To be continued 3
Gonzalinho
THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN OPUS DEI QUASI-FASCISM AND U.S. RIGHT-WING POLITICS
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[Examples from Gareth Gore, Opus (2024) of Opus Dei ideology active and aggressive in U.S. politics]
[Elitism] Pages 248-49
“During his second three-year term as chaplain of the Catholic Information Center, Father Arne Panula introduced a number of new initiatives designed to generate a steadier stream of donations—and to better integrate Opus Dei with wealthy Catholics. His first big initiative copied a popular strategy that had proved lucrative in almost every industry: the awards dinner. By bestowing an award on Washington’s most respected conservative Catholics, and then hosting a lavish dinner in their honor—to which all the city’s wealthy Catholics were invited—he generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single evening and established the Catholic Information Center at the heart of this influential community. And so the John Paul II Award was born in 2012. The inaugural award went to Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, who was popular with conservative members of his flock and who had recently stoked controversy by becoming one of the most senior members of the Church to sign the Manhattan Declaration. …The following year the award went to George Weigel, a biographer of Pope John Paul II and a big figure within the American Catholic right. The Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, an influential and wealthy Catholic brotherhood; the founder of the Becket Fund, a lobby group championing religious rights; and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia would all become recipients over the next few years.
“Father Arne set up another initiative called the Leonine Forum, a program for top graduates designed to provide them with ‘intellectual and spiritual seriousness.’ It, too, brought in generous donations from wealthy Catholics keen to steep the leaders of tomorrow in Church teachings. As ever, the Opus Dei name was kept out of any promotional material—but, even so, such events deepened the prelature’s presence among America’s most influential Catholics. For Father Arne, the ultimate goal of this outreach was transforming the political sphere, almost every aspect of which had grown more and more secular over the years. He believed that policy simply couldn’t be made by people who weren’t versed in the universal truths of the Church. His mission was to reverse this growing secularism—and put Opus Dei at the heart of a spiritual awakening.”
[Religious reaction] Page 250
[The American Principles Project] also sought to shape Republican policies. In September 2011, the American Principles Project sponsored a televised debate between the party’s candidates for president. After Obama’s reelection the following year, the Republican National Committee authored a long postmortem, concluding that it was time for the party to become more ‘welcoming and inclusive’ on issues like gay marriage and immigration. APP pushed back, commissioning its own report—with the help of pollster Kellyanne Conway—arguing for the opposite. The group also pumped money into swinging electoral races in New Jersey, where it tried to get supernumerary Jeff Bell elected to the Senate, as well as in Oregon. In Wyoming, it sought to derail the Senate ambitions of Liz Cheney. ‘The aim was to advance legislation that would be consistent with principles—conservative principles,’ recalled [Luis] Tellez [Opus Dei numerary].”
To be continued 4
Gonzalinho
THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN OPUS DEI QUASI-FASCISM AND U.S. RIGHT-WING POLITICS
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[Anti-liberalism] Pages 251-52
“The appointment of [Leonard] Leo [“big-name Catholic conservative”] came despite misgivings among the Opus Dei national leadership, and illustrated a transactional attitude toward this increasingly influential figure with deep connections in dark money. ‘He’s a figure in Washington, and he may have had kids in the school down there,’ explained Father Tom Bohlin, who headed Opus Dei in the United States at the time—and who met Leo at the Humanum conference in Rome. ‘I’m not sure he even understands Opus Dei, but at a certain level, he likes what we do—certain things—and wants to support that.’ The appointment of Leo marked a shift in the CIC board. For years, it had been run by Father Arne, another priest, and a smattering of volunteers drawn from the congregation. The makeup of the board was decidedly unpolitical—a mix of academics, lawyers, and volunteers who help run the bookshop. …in 2014, all that changed. Alongside Leo, Bill Barr, the former attorney general, was also appointed. Leo and his ilk would soon become a bridge connecting the prelature with important people on Capitol Hill—and the world of dark money populated by secretive billionaires with a deeply conservative agenda. Together, they would form a coalition—unified by their political connections, religious fervor, and money—that would reshape American society and destroy many hard-won civil rights.”
There are many examples throughout Gore’s book of Opus Dei’s activist corporate agenda, coordinated and orchestrated principally by numerary members and allied with powerful and moneyed political actors…not always Opus Dei members…to directly influence and control U.S. politics according to Opus Dei’s religiously based ideological program.
Gonzalinho
“TOO MUCH RELIGION”
ReplyDeleteTHE TRUMPIAN WORLDVIEW
By: Randy David - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:02 AM March 09, 2025
…Vice President JD Vance, a recent Catholic convert, gives Trump’s views a religious justification. In a Fox News interview, he cited “ordo amoris (order of love),” saying, “You love your family first, then your community, then your fellow citizens, and only after that, the rest of the world.”
This misapplication of a theological concept was so troubling that Pope Francis felt compelled to respond. In a rare official letter to the American bishops, the Pope reminded them of the true “ordo amoris.” Ever so subtly but powerfully, the Pope wrote: “The true ordo amoris that it is necessary to promote, is the one we discover meditating constantly on the parable of the Good Samaritan, that is, meditating on the love that builds an open fraternity to all without exception.”
https://opinion.inquirer.net/181453/the-trumpian-worldview
Religion is used by Vance to propagate unchristian tribalism. We are gratified by the papal correction.
Gonzalinho